I'm proud to announce the public release of StarTools 1.0!
StarTools is an astronomical image post processing suite focused on the unique needs of the amateur ‘sidewalk astronomer’ in urban areas.
StarTools tries to make up for a lack of professional equipment and imaging in less-than-ideal urban skies by leveraging this new era of cheap 64-bit CPU power and powerful off-the-shelf imaging hardware, such as modern Compact Digital Cameras, Digital Single-Lens Reflex cameras and webcams. Consequently StarTools contains features and algorithms that are not commonly found in traditional software packages for professionals, who typically have access to semi-professional equipment and dark sky sites.
StarTools has grown from being a loose collection of command-line utilities to a GUI operated integrated post-processing suite with *fangs*. I believe it's fair to say that, in some aspects, it gives the likes of PixInsight, Maxim DL, GradientXTerminator, StarSpikes Pro, Carboni's PS Actions, etc. a run for their money (at a much lower price!).
You can find version 1.0, along with manual in the download section of the StarTools website. Try the free demo as long as you like. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask through the ST forums or by contacting me through the website.
Huge thanks go out to the many IIS members that have been beta testing the software over the last few months. Your reports, comments and contributions have been invaluable and have made ST into what it is today. You rock!
Ivo
An excellent suite of astrophotography tools. Thanks so much for making them available to the community.
I for one really appreiate your efforts and ability.
All that remains is getting the word out there & convincing people that checking out the demo is really worth their while; ST contains a heap of functionality (especially for amateur imagers) that they're not going to find anywhere else!
Looks like a nice little software package....
Downloaded to try but none will run on my xp machine?
Startools has encountered a error and closes?
Hmmm.... Haven't had this problem reported before...
Did you extract everything, including the 'resources' file into its own folder? Running straight from the zip file will not work if, perhaps, that is what you're trying to do?
Hmmm.... Haven't had this problem reported before...
Did you extract everything, including the 'resources' file into its own folder? Running straight from the zip file will not work if, perhaps, that is what you're trying to do?
Thanks for the pm`s to try to get it up and running...
cheers Gary
I have the same problem as Gary with Win XP pro SP3.
I have extracted all into a folder and run the 32 bit app but it errors immediately after the program window appears.
When you say resources "folder" it actually appears as a "file" in the zip package, not a folder like the StarTools.app folder, could this be the problem?
Pleased to take this offline if you prefer...
Congratulations and good luck! I was waiting for weeks to see the demo
I ran very quick tests on my laptop but maybe it is little bit weak for the program. On the desktop PC it crashes by the way the others describe. Both machines are with XP SP3. I'll be happy if can help you to resolve this issue.
I'm starting to suspect (but do correct me if I'm wrong!) that the systems you're having trouble on don't support SSE3 CPU extensions. Gary - I don't believe your Athlon XP supports it (if memory serves me right, SSE3 is supported as of the Athlon64).
Ivo, Chris, what specs do your machines have?
StarTools was designed for multi-core 64-bit architectures with plenty of RAM and performs best on a quad core or higher. The rationale being that a CPU and memory upgrade is the cheapest and most versatile investment you can make when it comes to astrophotography (and many people already have very capable machines available without having to invest a cent!).
The 32-bit versions of the app have to emulate 64-bit instructions (basically by performing multiple 32-bit operations instead) which is quite a bit slower, they still rely on SSE3 to optimize some of the floating point operations. Please note that if you're running a 32-bit operating system on a 64-bit capable processor, this is still the case - you can only start to take full advantage of the native 64-bit capabilities of your CPU with a 64-bit operating system.
I will include a version that does not rely on SSE3 in the distribution - new download should be up in the next hour or so. Please let me know if that resolves your issue. I will also investigate doing a special 32-bit version of StarTools which should (hopefully) be less taxing on 32-bit architectures (however less accurate).
As of 1.0.14, the distribution includes a special lower quality (but less taxing) 32-bit signal path version for those on 32-bit legacy (Pentium III and up) systems with relatively low memory (1Gb or less).
I'm starting to suspect (but do correct me if I'm wrong!) that the systems you're having trouble on don't support SSE3 CPU extensions. Gary - I don't believe your Athlon XP supports it (if memory serves me right, SSE3 is supported as of the Athlon64).
Ivo, Chris, what specs do your machines have?
StarTools was designed for multi-core 64-bit architectures with plenty of RAM and performs best on a quad core or higher. The rationale being that a CPU and memory upgrade is the cheapest and most versatile investment you can make when it comes to astrophotography (and many people already have very capable machines available without having to invest a cent!).
The 32-bit versions of the app have to emulate 64-bit instructions (basically by performing multiple 32-bit operations instead) which is quite a bit slower, they still rely on SSE3 to optimize some of the floating point operations. Please note that if you're running a 32-bit operating system on a 64-bit capable processor, this is still the case - you can only start to take full advantage of the native 64-bit capabilities of your CPU with a 64-bit operating system.
I will include a version that does not rely on SSE3 in the distribution - new download should be up in the next hour or so. Please let me know if that resolves your issue. I will also investigate doing a special 32-bit version of StarTools which should (hopefully) be less taxing on 32-bit architectures (however less accurate).
Hi Ivo,
Find attached a print screen of the debug window. Might help, but you probably nutted it out in what you have mentioned above..
Shall give your new backward compatiable 32 bit version..
cheers Gary
I'm hoping the 32-bit legacy version takes care of the problem, if not I'm going to have to send you another debug version and get you to do the same thing...
Just checked and the P4 is with Northwood core so there is no SSE3...
